Hands up everyone who had the Giants playing a meaningful game on the final weekend of the regular season prior to the start of the season! Anyone? Didn’t think so. Yet here we are heading to week 17 and the Giants actually have a chance to advance to the playoffs. Beat Dallas and if Washington loses in Philadelphia we’re in. And yeah I know there’s a great big asterix out there in that the only reason the Giants are contending is because everyone else in the division is just as bad! But hey its 2020 so give me a break.
Plus, it’s kind of a win-win situation for the Giants. Win the division and you go to the playoffs and ain’t nobody in sports anywhere that’s going to turn that down. Lose, and the Giants will have a top ten draft pick that just might put them in range to grab one of this year’s elite receiver prospects such as Alabama’s DeVonta Smith and/or Ja’Marr Chase of LSU. Indeed, the Giants could still technically pick as early as 3rd if they were to lose to the Cowboys, although, based on the schedules of other team’s ahead of them this week, 6-8 is the more likely range. The one real downer this weekend would be for the Giants to beat the Cowboys to finish 6-10, but then have Washington knock off Philadelphia for the division title. Even then the Giants ceiling would be the 13th pick.
Of course, beating the Cowboys on Sunday isn’t going to be easy. Dallas seems to have righted it’s ship of late having won three straight, but the Cowboys could be feeling just a little too good about themselves to take the Giants seriously these days. And the Giants will be at home. Meanwhile, there’s a crazy situation developing in Washington where the WTFs just released QB Dwayne Haskins – the guy everyone expected the Giants to take with the 6th in 2019 when they chose Daniel Jones – after he walked out on the team after being benched during yesterday’s upset loss to Carolina. And with Alex Smith still hobbled by a calf injury, it appears Washington could very well be starting Taylor Heinicke on Sunday in Philadelphia. Heinicke is the former record-setting D-1AA QB at Old Dominion who has been kicking around the NFL as a third-teamer/practice squad player since going undrafted in 2015. Good luck with that!!
Of course, the Giants will have to play much better against the Cowboys than they did in losses to Cleveland and Baltimore the past two weeks. Indeed, they were hard games to watch. The offensive woes have been well-documented, but we were particularly frustrated by the defense. In the end, they didn’t give up a ton of points allowing 20 and 27, respectively, to teams that had been averaging close to 40 in their previous three games, but they couldn’t get off the field in either game as both the Browns and Ravens had 400 yards of offense and combined to convert 17 of 24 third downs. In the process, both the Browns and Ravens were able to control the clock and dominate field position.
The Browns’ game was particularly frustrating to watch. I understand the Giants were really short-handed in the secondary with CB James Bradberry sidelined because of a covid contact against the Browns and couldn’t be too aggressive. However, it appeared that the Giants’ defensive plan didn’t amount to more than a glorified prevent defense. In a prevent you essentially drop very deep to try and take away the big play (when a big play is the only way you can lose), but in the process concede your opponent a 12-15-18 yard gain almost at will. And that’s what Baker Mayfield did as he completed 27 of 32 passes to mostly wide-open receivers over the middle. Had to be very frustrating for the Giants secondary players.
And what was especially frustrating in that one was that twice in the second half, down by two scores, the Giants had the Browns starting drives inside their 5-yard line. If ever there was a time to get a little aggressive to try and force a mistake or a turnover or at least a three and out to in order to get some decent field position that was it. However, the Giants brain trust seemed to say ‘Great, we got ‘em where we want ‘em; if they want to score they’ll have to drive 95 yards’ in a situation when what you really needed was to get the ball back in one way or another.
Again, we understand the Giants were short-handed in the secondary, but the Browns don’t exactly have a track team at WR. And we just felt that the Giants safeties like Logan Ryan, Xavier McKinney and Julian Love would have had a chance matching up against the Browns receivers on occasion. But hey, we didn’t give up any big plays.
There was a very similar story in the Ravens’ game. In fact, what one saw was a completely different defensive philosophy between the two teams. Even though they were playing without 2 of their top 3 corners, the Ravens consistently brought 9 or 10 guys into the box within a yard or two of the line of scrimmage. Heck, there were even a couple of plays on which the Ravens had all 11 defensive players stretched out along the line of scrimmage. From there, the Ravens had 5 or 6 guys coming on every play that ultimately produced 6 sacks and a total of 11 hits on Daniel Jones.
In contrast, the Giants lined up four guys along the LOS, two LBs 5-6 yards off the line and everybody else farther back in coverage. And we aren’t sure who came up with the idea of rushing just four, including three 300+ pounders, and asking them to chase down Lamar Jackson. Good luck with that! Of course, the plan was to keep Jackson in the pocket and make him beat you throwing from the pocket. The problem was that Jackson was simply able to move around until one of his receivers came open, which was early and often, and then play catch.
In the end, though, Jackson didn’t beat the Giants with his arm; he beat them, along with his RBs, with his legs at the Ravens ran for almost 300 yards. They basically outnumbered the Giants front at the point of attack and forced Blake Martinez and company to play chase. If you want to stop fast runners like Jackson and Dobbins you have to get penetration and clog up lanes. You got no chance if you let them get up a head of steam and then try and chase them.
We have a problem with the Cowboys, who unlike both the Ravens and Browns who are pretty pedestrian when it comes to their skill position, have a talented trio of receivers in Cooper, Lamb and Gallup whom the Giants don’t match up at all with. In that sense its almost imperative that the Giants score some points this Sunday.
We don’t want to dwell too much on the past couple of week’s losses, but we felt there was at least one ‘stud of the game’ award against Baltimore. That goes to WR Sterling Shepard who had 9 receptions for 77 yards and the Giants’ lone score. He also had a 16-yard reception on a third and 15 which he really had to battle to get to the line. However, that was Shepard’s long again of the day and it may be emblematic of some of the Giants’ offensive woes this fall. Shepard does have a respectable 58 catches in 11 games to date, but he’s averaging just 9.4 yards per reception, which isn’t very good even for a prototype possession receiver.
On the other hand, there were more than enough ‘duds’ against the Ravens. And speaking of receivers, let’s start with Darius Slayton who had only two catches from 8 targets. One of those was a 15-yard gain on a 3rd and 18 that he appeared to have a chance to convert, but shied from contact when he had to put his head down and battle. In fact, Slayton has pretty much disappeared the second half of the season so we can only hope he’s not at 100%.
At the same time, CB Ike Yiadom had actually played pretty well the past couple of weeks, but looked like he didn’t any part of the Ravens. He was caught badly out of position on the Ravens’ first TD and then missed three tackles, two of which were ‘oles’ that would have been third down stops. And we’re not sure who came up with the idea of starting David Mayo as the stand-up DE on the four man front. Normally an ILBer, Mayo was never able to set the edge and was totally ineffective trying to rush the passer.
